questions on SP2

[ITlover]

I have a question regarding the Tip of the Day: "Turning off the SP2 Security Service"

What can cause a person to turn of this SP2 service since it is essential for protection against viruses and other threats?


Can any one please explain?


Regards,

[RJ]

What can cause a person to turn of this SP2 service since it is essential for protection against viruses and other threats?

Coz you're wrong. It's nothing essential. If you have no firewall active, or no automatic updates enabled, or no antivirus installed. .. . or if it doesn't detect your firewall or AV, it'll bug you.

So, since I know I have a software firewall enabled (and if not, no problem, I have a hardware firewall, too), and I have AV software installed (but not running in the background), and I don't use automatic updates, the reminders are pretty much annoying, so I (and everyone I know) turned it off.

Software firewalls and AV still work, regardless whether this security service is enabled or not.

RJ

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by ITlover What can cause a person to turn of this SP2 service since it is essential for protection against viruses and other threats?

Just for clarification too, SP2 does not protect against viruses. It merely tells you if you don't have virus software running. As RJ said, in many cases this is just an annoyance so many people disable it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/features.mspx

[doctorgonzo]

I've found that it is more of an annoyance than anything else. It obvious can't detect a corporate hardware firewall, and it doesn't even detect SAV Corporate Edition for some reason. I know that these things are running, so I don't pay attention to Windows Security Center complaints.